All the discussions about how to deal with citations I heard at DC8 or
read on this list assume that a citation is an entity that has to go
into a specific DC Element. All the points of view I encountered only
differed on which Element a citation should go into.
But why must a citation be dealt with as an irreducible entity that can
only be put into one element? After all, a citation has many specific
elements that are put together in such a way as to make a citation.
Each of those elements is quite distinct from the others and has its own
definition.
Why not take the approach of deciding where each citation element should
go in DC? Once this is determined, then a Citation Profile (or set of
profiles) could be developed and published that would consist of a list
of those element included in the profile, instructions about the order
in which those elements would be displayed, as well as the punctuation
that would populate the citation. This approach would preserve the
modular characteristic of DC, thereby also giving a great deal of
flexibility in dealing with all the citation variations that exist now
and will evolve in the future. This approach would also put the display
functionality in the software that parses the DC metadata, rather than
embedding it directly in a DC Element.
Such an approach could serve as a model for any other predefined set of
DC Elements and Qualifiers that a particular community might want to
define and use for a particular purpose.
--
David Dorman
Consultant, Lincoln Trail Libraries
Contributing Editor, American Libraries
217-352-0047 (work)
217-344-2174 (home)
217-352-7153 (fax)
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